26 months 5 days

Day 797. Last night I headed to bed at 11:45 pm, but it took me a while to fall asleep. Tammy and Emmy joined us in bed, as usual, and Emmy was a little restless. We got up around 7:45, I made breakfast, we ate, they took their medicine, brushed their teeth and got dressed. They saw the package sitting there and wanted to open it, so we did. It was full of sheets for the children in Mali.

Then we went downstairs, where we got the Bibles out and started reading Bible stories. When Randy arrived, I went upstairs, finished cleaning up, put a chicken into the oven, and turned my computer on to work. At 11:30 I stopped working to cook rice with vegetables to go with the chicken, and at noon I called them all upstairs to eat. Emmy was eating his rice but no chicken, while Tammy didn't want either. Sammy is the chicken king, so at least he ate it. Tammy wanted to have squeezie drinks instead, and they finished them today. Emmy got some pudding as he had eaten well. Then they both drank their medicine voluntarily - just cough sirup - and went into the bathtub to have fun with the water. I fed Sammy his pudding in the bathtub. They did not appreciate coming back out. I dressed them and put the boys to bed. However, Emmy wanted Daddy, and so I went downstairs with Tammy, while Randy rocked Emmy.

Tammy wanted to watch Barbapapa and babies, which she did. After a while we went upstairs, as I was figuring Emmy should be asleep by then, and he was. Randy sat down by Tammy's bed, and she fell asleep surprisingly fast. After a while Emmy woke up, and Randy went downstaurs with him, until he wanted his Mommy and he brought him back to me. But he wasn't with me long and asked for his Daddy again, and so I took him back to Randy, who already had Sammy. I also took some snacks downstairs. Emmy didn't want to let me go and was clinging to me crying, so I stayed a few minutes, but then I did leave and Randy got him to stop crying after a short time. Tammy was already up, when I went upstairs, and so I took her downstairs as well, and stayed with them for a short while. That's when I took this cute picture of Sammy playing with the hats!

I was finally able to pull myself away from them, which wasn't easy, and returned to my computer to do some work, even though time was short.

At 2 pm I had started making their dinner and putting it into their to go-boxes, as we hadn't been in church in 3 weeks with this sickness and decided it was time to go. However. Emmy had quite a fever once again and looked terrible, and so we had no choice but to cancel it once again. I felt pretty terrible myself. That meant, when I got up at 5:30 to make their dinner, the bread was actually already done, and I only had to cut their fruit. However, Tammy and Emmy didn't even eat ONE bite of fruit, so what't the point of all this effort?

Just before 6 pm I went downstairs to tidy up with them, and they both helped a little and got a coin for their piggy banks for it. Then we went upstairs for dinner. Tammy ate her soup, but that was it, while Emmy had some bread. They drank their cough sirup voluntarily again, and then went into the bathtub. I noticed that Emmy's fever had gone down again. He gets a fever every day at noon that goes high and then drops again and is gone by the time he goes to bed. It's sure weird. Unfortunately Tuesday is the earliest the pediatrician is open again. All of them are really losing weight with their loss of appetite that has been going for weeks now.

They had fun in the bathtub, but didn't eat very much more. We got them out and ready for bed, and by about 7:10 they were in bed. I felt really miseralbe by then, but Randy doesn't have any patience, so I relieved him from sitting in the chair, even though I was freezing cold (the fever). Sammy was wide awake tonight and a rare challenge. Emmy fell asleep first, and Tammy also needed a long time. It took over an hour before I was finally able to walk away.

As we had planned to go to church, we had ordered in food to eat while watching a movie. I felt so terrible all I really wanted was to go to bed, but instead we went downstairs and started one movie, and then another while eating. After we were done eating, we stopped the movie and went back upstairs, earlier than we would have had I not been sick. I lay down in bed, trying to warm up. After a while I was finally warm, and then I was getting too hot. Thankfully I only had a few pictures today, and then started writing my report. I fell asleep several times while reading. As for Emmy, he's been up repeatedly again, and it's mainly been Randy to sit with him and let him fall asleep again on his chest before putting him back to bed. He has no fever now. All I myself want to do is go to bed. And for all of us to finally be healthy again after over 3 weeks of sickness, and 4 weeks before going to Mali. I don't know what a weird, persistent virus this is.